


Entrenched

by cherie_morte



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - World War II, M/M, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-04-05 20:18:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19047652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherie_morte/pseuds/cherie_morte
Summary: World War II AU: Dean said he was going so he would be a hero. Sam ate it right up at first. Begged to come with him.





	Entrenched

**Author's Note:**

> So this is just a mini-glimpse into an AU that probably doesn't do the idea justice. I posted it on Tumblr years ago and then never got around to posting as a fic because I figured it needed a lot of polishing and beefing up. But now it is 10 minutes to midnight on May 31 and if I don't post something before tomorrow, I will fail my new year's resolution of posting something every month of this year. I hope you enjoy it? Sorry it's so brief! I don't even honestly remember how this came about, if it was an ask or what. I think the general idea was: Sam and Dean will always be all messed up over each other, in every possible universe, even without hunting, because that's just who they are.
> 
> Oh, and I know there are tons of historical inaccuracies and anachronistic language going on here. I wasn't about to do research for a 1000 word ficlet I spent 20 minutes cleaning up. Just take it for granted that in the world of this fic, shit happened the way it says, and if that's too much of a leap, just skip this one, you won't be missing much. XD

Dean said he was going so he would be a hero. Like Dad, he told Sammy, once he finally resolved to do it, one of those nights while they were both lying awake in the too-small room they shared, talking way past when they should have fallen asleep. Sam ate it right up at first. Begged to come with him.

"Don’t be stupid," Dean had said, weeks later as he packed his bag, when it was starting to feel all too real and Sam still wouldn’t let up. "You’re too young."

Sam hadn’t fallen for it—he never fell for anything. “Dad was too young when he joined up.”

"Dad was four months shy of his eighteenth birthday when he lied," Dean said. "You’re fifteen. And a total squirt. No one will ever believe you’re old enough to fight."

He had mussed up Sam’s too-long hair, made a joke about how Sam would never make it in the army, anyway, he’d cry as soon as they made him cut it.

Sam shoved him away, spent the rest of the night pouting and glaring at Dean. The next morning, when Dean was getting ready to go, Dad’s proud slaps on his shoulders, Mom crying and telling him to take care of himself, Sam was nowhere to be found.

"Probably off somewhere whining because he didn’t get his way," John mumbled into his newspaper when Dean asked, and Mom slapped him lightly, telling him to be more understanding, reminding him that it wasn’t so long ago he was just as eager to march off to war.

Dean had found Sam out back, or rather, Sam had found Dean. Ugly tears running down his cheeks, and he’d pulled Dean into a hug, begged him not to go. He said Dean didn’t have to, that he was already a hero to Sam, and wasn’t that just the bitch of it all?

Dean didn’t want to go to war. He didn’t want to kill people who never did anything to him. He wanted to make Dad proud, sure, bring back some of the Winchester glory John had fought so hard for in the Great War, but that wasn’t the truth of it. This was. Sam wrapped in his arms, feeling like he belonged there. Kid was fifteen years old for chrissakes, and if Dean didn’t get out, he’d ruin him. He’d do one of the terrible things he’s dreamed about, and Sam would hate him instead of looking up with that little brother shine in his eyes.

Better to die as a nice memory, to forever be someone Sam can miss.

"C’mon, Sammy, it’s gonna be good for both of us. I’m gonna kick some Nazi ass and Mom and Dad can focus on sending you to school. I know you’ll like that, won’t you? God knows they can’t afford to send us both, and what would I do in college?"

Sam shook his head, pulled Dean in tighter. Said he didn’t need to go to school if Dean would stay. At least wait for the draft or until they were old enough to go together. Not run off and get himself killed.

"If you die, I’ll kill you," Sam had promised.

Dean had laughed, asked how he planned to do that if Dean was already dead.

He went. He came back four years later with a medal pinned to his chest and a scar across his eye. Sam was home to welcome him, a distant look in his expression when Dean pulled him in for a hug. Dean _had_ died a little overseas. Maybe not in the way Sam had been afraid of all those years ago, but in a way that might have been worse. Sam didn’t look as alive as he remembered, either.

Seeing the bitterness in his brother’s eyes somehow did manage to kill Dean all over again, even after everything he’d seen in the war. Sam always kept his promises.

Being near his brother still brought up all those things he thought—when he was younger and dumber and not a killer—he could run away from. Turns out he did all of that, and it didn’t cure a damn thing. He still wanted the same things he’d feared when he left. Funny how that never went away. Not with the pretty USO girls, not when his brothers-in-arms reached for him across the trench, desperate for something like comfort or home or just to feel alive because they knew the next day half of them wouldn’t be. Not even in the heat of battle, when stopping to think would have been enough to get Dean and half his regiment blown up. Half a world away, and Sam was always there making his skin too tight.

"You never let them tell me when you were coming home," Sam said later that night, when it was just him and Dean sharing a couple of beers on the porch, the ‘welcome home’ barbecue still buzzing on in the background. "You always requested to get sent back before I could see you."

"Hey, how’s that fancy university of yours?" Dean had asked, pretending he didn’t hear, playing drunker than he was. "You’re loving it, aren’t you?"

"I know why you left," Sam said quietly. Accusingly. "I knew then."

"Sam, you don’t—"

"You tried to get yourself killed just to get away from me," Sam continued. "And that’s what I always had to carry around. If you died it would’ve been my fault."

Dean scoffed. “You don’t know the first about carrying things around, college boy.”

Sam put his beer on the ground between them, moved until he was standing above Dean. It was weird how he could do that now. He was such a half-fry when Dean last saw him, and he somehow got even more beautiful, so Dean couldn’t really look at him directly. Four years seeing the things he’d been seeing, Sam was too much good to believe in.

Sam moved down, slotted his mouth against Dean’s. Just for a second. Just long enough that Dean couldn’t pretend it didn’t happen. He cupped Dean’s face. “I know how to carry you.”


End file.
